


So Close, and Yet So Far

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: F/M, Gun Violence, Monster Hunters, Post Resident Evil 5, Undercover as a Couple, things go awry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:40:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23850979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: Carlos is pretty sure this job was specifically designed to torture him.  It's the first time he's seen Jill since hearing she was back from the dead, and he's stuck pretending to be someone he's not, and she's someone she's not.  The fact that the B.O.W.s they were tracking broke loose from the auction and started causing mayhem's almost a welcome distraction.  Almost.
Relationships: Carlos Oliveira/Jill Valentine
Comments: 10
Kudos: 74
Collections: Minigame: Round 1





	So Close, and Yet So Far

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vachtar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vachtar/gifts).



He squeezed off three quick shots, before shifting around a table, putting it between the hunter and himself. He realized just how terrible that plan was when the Hunter cleared the table in a single leap, narrowly missing his face with a swipe of its claws He backpedalled looking for something to distract it—not having much luck because the hunter was commanding all of his attention.

He ticked things off in his head. Maybe five minutes after she asked him to buy her time while she picked a lock. Two after the barricade he slapped together out of a card table and some chairs failed. Somewhere five or six bullets left in the magazine of his gun. Only one of the hunters was in this restaurant. Plenty of distant screaming, human and nonhuman, confirmed that the others were busy. One hunter versus one mostly-empty handgun was not odds he was fond of.

He turned and looked at the bar, running over and hopping over it. The hunter followed, catching a bottle of something expensive in the face. On the one hand, a eyesful of alcohol and broken glass probably made it difficult for the thing to see. On the other, in close quarters, its manic flailing came way too close to comfort—for both him and the bartender, who he _just noticed_ had dived under the bar when the screaming, roaring, and gunfire started.

“Over the bar!” he yelled.

To her credit, the girl—who probably wasn’t paid enough for this anyways—had the wherewithal to follow that order. The hunter meanwhile, continued to thrash, shattering more bottles. He’d spent good money at the bar here—definitely were watering things down, cheap bastards.

He grabbed the bartender by the arm and dragged her away from the bar, deciding to switch to shoving her to the floor and hitting the deck himself when he saw Jill, fancy dress, barefoot, and carrying a grenade launcher.

Whatever bottles of booze the hunter hadn’t shattered where erased when Jill fired. It shrieked inside the firestorm, thrashed some more, and fell against the burning wood. “Christ, you’re a sight for sore eyes. Even more than usual.”

“Told you they’d have _something_ to help deal with the hunters.”

“Makes sense, but they’ve been doing such a bang-up job handling their ‘merchandise’ I’m still surprised.”

Jill nodded. She set the launcher on a table, and then shrugged a carbine off of her shoulder, offering it to him. Not ideal—hunters could take a lot of lead, but better than a handgun. Plus, he figured she could make better use of the grenade launcher than he could. He grabbed the grip of the rifle and brought the gun up to his shoulder. “Any spare mags?”

He looked at her, in a slinky black gown, and realized she didn’t have a ton of pocket space. So... thirty rounds of ammo, however many grenades she was carrying, and a mostly-empty handgun. Things would be tight.

“What’s going on?!” Jill and Carlos looked at the bartender, who began to ramble a bit.

“We’re with the B.S.A.A.” Jill said. “Trust us, we’re professionals.”

“Cavalry should be here soon.” Carlos said, trying to be positive, despite the fact that _of course_ the auction as taking place in an isolated Swiss hotel in the middle of a blizzard. That’d slow them down. “We still have a job to do, but just sit tight here…”

Carlos turned and looked at the spreading fire from where Jill shot the Hunter. The sprinklers had started up, but… it was an open question about who’d win that fight. Shrieks echoed down from outside the restaurant.

“…on second thought stick with us, and you’ll be fine.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later, the cavalry arrived. Great, except Jill and he had cleaned up the last of the hunters by minute twenty-six. Six late-model Hunters, across four rooms in two floors of this hotel that were going to need some serious renovation.

While backup was policing up all of the guests—maybe some bioweapons traffickers hadn’t gotten eaten and could be brought to trial—he’d headed back to the restaurant. It _survived_ somewhat. Didn’t have a particular reason to, but he did. Bartender stuck with him, too. Jill was somewhere.

“So... B.S.A.A.?” The girl—Lena, he recalled from a conversation they’d had two nights previous. She let it hang, obviously wanting some sort of explanation as to why her workplace just turned into a warzone.

“Undercover.” Was all Carlos was willing to offer. He’d joined the organization a few years back… he’d dabbled in some mercenary work in viral hot zones after Raccoon, had several joint operations with the B.S.A.A., but the death of a… friend inspired him to join up in full.

Never mind the fact that said friend had been obliterating lizard men with a grenade launcher for the past half-hour. This assignment actually had been the first time he’d seen Jill since he’d found out that rumors of her death had been greatly exaggerated.

And it was torture.

The mission was to play pretend. He was the representative of parties interested in buying those Hunters, she was his trophy wife. They shared a room, shared a bed, even had some _loud_ over-the-clothes action, just in case the room was bugged, to really sell it.

And all he’d wanted to do was learn what happened in Kijuju.

That was all he knew. She was found in Africa, alive and well. Shit got real. And everything beyond that was beyond his pay grade. And all he could find out, method acting as a criminal middleman, was she had a series of scars on her torso—always covered when not in bed. Only time she flinched at his touch was when he brushed against them once.

The past week was insane. He was as close to her as he’d ever wanted to be, _but_ it was all pretend. He could look at her, touch her, be touched by her, but it was the call of duty. Hell, in a way, the fact things had all fallen apart and they had been fighting hunters was a relief. Because it meant that he was fighting monsters with Jill Valentine again, who had the plan to break into the auctioneer's suite to see if he had anything that could maybe stop the hunters.

Lena pushed against his arm, and held up a half bottle of something fancy, label in… some language, he assumed. There was a survivor of the fire after all. “You were staring off into space. Look like you could use a drink.”

He nodded. “You too.”

She shook her head and sort of receded back, apparently certain she wasn’t going to get any questions answered by him. He took a swig… definitely watered it down. Still, Lena was not wrong. When the least confusing, agonizing part of the week was a running battle against hunters… yeah. So close to Jill, but so far. Playing pretend, with so much he wanted to say—hell, he hadn’t even had the chance to tell her “Glad you’re not dead” face-to-face, since they met here.

When someone slight filled his peripheral vision, he asked “Still could use the drink?”

“You’re still technically on the clock, Carlos.”

Jill. Saying his name, not his fake one. God, he hadn’t realized how much he missed that. “Yeah… well, I’ve been on the clock for the past week, and I’ve been drinking here for most of that time.”

“Not all of it.” She put a hand on his arm. He set the bottle down and looked at her. She looked exhausted, looked as drawn out as he felt. “It’s been hard. Not talking.”

“Staying in character was hard.” He nodded.

She sidled a little closer him. Mixed with sweat and smoke, he could still smell some sort of floral scent. Perfume, shampoo, whatever. Past week, it had burrowed into his skull. “Yeah. Difficult. Could be worse, though.”

Carlos took in a deep breath. There were a ton of things he wanted to ask her. It all boiled down to the one question that left his lips. “Are you… okay.”

She nodded. Whatever happened, between her ‘death’ and Kijuju meant that _no,_ she was not. But she was _tough_. “Quite the first week back on the job.”

“This was your first assignment?” He asked. “Since…”

He left that trail off.

“Yeah. Supposed to be simple. Call in the cavalry once the auction got underway, the Hunters were not going to break loose.” Yeah, that was the rundown he got, too. “Not going to lie, I kinda figured things would end up like this. Simple mission my ass.”

The were silent for a while, before she said.

“I’m glad you were my partner on this.” She said, quiet. “I needed someone I…”

This was apparently as complicated for her as it was for him. He wasn’t ready when she leaned heavily into him, resting her head on his shoulder like they were still playing pretend. The sigh she let out when she did was Jill’s sigh. Not her acting.

“This week was bad.” He said. “A lot of things I wanted to say. Couldn’t.”

“Me too. Still…” A hand ran down his thigh. “There were some perks.”

He tentatively lifted his arm and draped it across her shoulders. She looked up at him and smiled. They sat, discussing trivialities. He found the questions about Kijuju didn’t trouble him as much. He did want to understand what happened, but that could wait until if she was ready to talk about it.

For now, just talking, Carlos to Jill, was great.

**Author's Note:**

> To the requestor, I hope you enjoy this! I loved your prompts, and I loved trying to project Carlos a little further along in the RE Canon after how much I dug his and Jill's interactions in the remake! Let me know if this was okay, or if you'd prefer something else.


End file.
